Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/60

54 measure metaphysical, and utterly opposed to the natural instincts of the masses! Marvelous indeed that capability of creating a policy hitherto unprecedented and nowhere understood, and yet well fitted to disconcert a powerful and subtle adversary! Ah! apart from all feelings of justice and outraged national rights so vividly engaged in the formidable Polish question, is there not an interest of the very highest order in this novel phenomenon of a living poetry throwing the light of a new day upon the most startling events, a poetry which, while incarnating itself in the form of palpitating actuality, does not the less continue to hold its being in the realm of the Ideal, to retain its character as one of the most remarkable manifestations of modern genius, marked with that seal of excellence stamped upon the highest works of art? Truly here is food for thought! Such has been the power, and such is the poetry of the author of "The Undivine Comedy," of "Iridion," of "The Psalms of the Future"—a spirit as mighty as unknown!

For those who love to seize genius, in its passage across this earth, in the joys and sorrows of its human existence, who seek above all in the works of a great author the mystic alphabet by which they may learn to read the man himself, the life of the Polish writer, in its details and catastrophes, presents a study as curious as pathetic. Even the name of "Anonymous Poet," which the author of "Iridion" retained during life, and which remains his even after death, is sufficient to force us to acknowledge that we stand in the presence of a situation by no means common, perhaps of a state of suffering happily exceedingly uncommon, and which at once commands our respect. For no longer do we live in the days of modesty and innocence, when the painter gave himself but a little corner in his picture, and disappeared in his work! In our times, the artist is too apt to make his own personality the one luminous point of his composition! And well indeed it were if only the truly imperial genius should thus seize the wreath of laurel to crown himself; or if the halo of glory were only wreathed by those who merit at least some degree of public attention. But where is now the talent, however wretched, to be found, which will